A SHORT HISTORY OF NORTH WICHITA NEIGHBORHOODS

The preservation and celebration of the cultural history of both neighborhoods have never been as important or relevant as in today’s socio-political climate.

[ NORTHEND ]

For the North End residents, the phenomenological history of their neighborhood is rife with the remnants of wage slavery, poor living conditions, and racial discrimination. Conversely, some religious institutions and family owned business remain in operation today, illustrating a strong desire from those mostly Mexican immigrants to integrate into the fabric of Wichita, fostering a sense of belonging through food, the arts, and religiosity.

Dating back over 100 years, rail yards and meat packing companies actively recruited migrant Mexican workers with promises of transportation and housing. However, provisions for the workers and their families were insufficient. As worker colonies grew, new immigrants moved into North Wichita in search of better living conditions and more viable employment, they were met with opposition from labor unions that wanted to exclude Mexicans from working in Wichita.

The 1915 Kansas Census listed only 135 Mexicans living in Wichita. 74 of these were adult males and all were listed as laborers. There were only 23 adult women all listed as housewives and hence there were only 23 families that had 38 children among them. By the 1925 Kansas Census, the number of Mexicans living in the city had grown to 934.The North End community of Mexicans lived mostly between 21st Street and 25th Street within a few blocks west of Broadway.

According to the 2010 Kansas Census, Wichita has a Latino population of approximately 58,348 people, of which 49,000 are of Mexican heritage. Although Latino and Asian populations live all throughout the city, the Northend continues to be an area with a high concentration of Latino and Southeast Asian residents.

[ NORTHEAST ]

Many of the residents of Northeast Wichita historically were African-American migrants from the South. Due to the lack of resources and means of access, their spatial experiences were inherently dictated by real estate agents, federal government housing agencies, white neighborhood councils, and banks.

The Home Owners’ Land Corporation created a system that rates urban neighborhoods by defining risks to lending organizations. African-American residents were the most ‘at-risk’ demographic and were victims of a process called redlining. This allowed banks to deny loans for commercial or personal property for Northeast residents. Blocking progress, pushing African-Americans out white neighborhoods, and causing the deterioration of their already geographically scarred community. Decimated by the construction of an interstate highway.

HISTORICAL RESOURCES

North End- Beginnings

Mexicans have been coming to Wichita starting in the 1870s, when they came as Vaqueros on the cattle drives. They numbers remained small, however, for much of the 1800s.

North End Demographic Change

Northeast- Early Wichita's African Americans

The State of Kansas was forged in the crucible of violence over the issue of slavery. Though the 1820 Missouri Compromise had explicitly forbidden the practice in most new western territories except Missouri, the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed settlers in the proposed new states to self-determine whether or not slavery would or would not be legal within their borders.